I just got a piano – nothing fancy, a simple starter upright for just over $3,000. I have two choices of where to put it. The secondary choice is in a dark, quiet corner of our house.
But I’d prefer to put it by our big picture window with a view. Now, I know that means I’d have to get a piano cover so it doesn’t sit in direct sunlight all day. But what about temperature changes?
The person who sold it to me said the piano will be fine in temperature swings, it’ll just require more frequent tuning. By temp swings, I mean:
we live in Los Angeles.
At night in the winter, it can get pretty cold. In the summer, with late afternoon sun coming in through the window (where the piano will be), it’ll easily hit mid 80’s with the a/c on. Mid 90’s without a/c. (If we’re out of town, or a/c breaks down, etc.)
The piano won’t be adjacent to the window, but it’d only be about 5 feet away from it.
Is it really as simple as just getting it tuned now and again? Or will putting the piano there have more serious consequences?
I don’t know the proper answer, but my piano has been through plenty of changes in temperature and humidity, having spent much of its existence by windows in poorly-insulated places, and it is fine. I just had it tuned for the first time since 1986 and it was just a tiny bit flat. For the record, it is a Kawai model UST-6.
You’re talking about variation between summer and winter? Don’t worry a thing about it. Won’t even need refining much, probably.
Maybe you will take the piano cover off when you play? Get the best sound.
Congratulations on your new piano! Play it in good health!
I have no idea if this is correct but when I bought my piano, I was told I should put it against an interior wall if at all possible, to limit the temperature and humidity changes.
The last time I moved the piano movers said not even to worry about that interior wall thing. That’s a very old concept, and today’s houses are better insulated and kept at more even temperatures than pianos in houses 50 years ago. The main worry with direct sunlight is actually the piano’s finish, not its performance.
Have no idea – I’ve only owned digitals since I left my parents’ house as a kid. I wouldn’t put a piano of mine up in direct sunlight, though. Maybe because of the finish, but maybe it depends on the kind of windows you have.
At any rate, I like a little dark room in which to play personally – vide “Otis in the Dark.”
But, spill, man! What piano did you acquire?
ETA IME from when I was a kid piano movers will charge you what they need to – a few steps into a 1 floor vs. a few more into a 2 floor is not likely to be all that much more.
Retired Piano Technician speaking. 32 years full-time professional.
Sunlight will damage a finish very quickly, but the heat can also cause real damage to the piano’s interior, and it doesn’t necessarily take a lot of daily exposure.
The “outside wall” rule is from an earlier time, and harsh climates.
The OP wants to protect the piano from extremes of hot, cold, wet, and dry, and from extreme shifts from one to another. Open windows, breezy hallways, too close to heaters, AC’s, fireplaces can all be problematic. A little common sense goes a long way. I was amazed at how many pianos I encountered that were sitting directly over floor heater vents.
I strongly encourage the OP to let the piano sit in the house for a few weeks, and then have a Piano Technician tune it. The Tech can advise about placement, and recommended maintenance.
That explains a lot. The UST-6’s were well designed and very well constructed.
That depends entirely on the local climate, and the OP lives in L.A., where the Santa Ana’s are as hard on a piano as any seasonal change. The SA’s wreak havoc on a piano’s tuning. (I spent my career in San Diego.)
I just re-read your OP more carefully. From what you describe, it should be okay, but have your Piano Tech advise regarding the need for a cover.
Wow. That sounds absolutely incredible to me. So the Kawai UST-6s are known to hold pitch that well? It’s absolutely inconceivable to me that a piano that’s been in that kind of environment and hasn’t been tuned in 25 years could maintain pitch (except for being a little bit flat), but I have no experience with that particular piano.
We had a kind of unfortunate situation where we moved to a house that our piano couldn’t be maneuvered into, and so our piano spent about five years sitting on a dolly in an unheated garage, with temperatures ranging from the mid-90’s in the summer to 20 to 30 below in the winter. It had just been a $50 craigslist purchase, so I had just figured it’d be a write-off. But we played it from time to time over the years and it never really noticeably went out of tune (we would sometimes wheel it out for dinner music during BBQ’s). When we finally moved out I had a piano guy come out and look at it (more out of curiosity than anything) and amazingly the thing was still essentially in tune. He also told me a little bit more about the piano, which is a beast of a Baldwin upright that turned out to have been made in 1918. Instead of scrapping it, I ended up taking it with us and even getting some little mechanical problems fixed.
Now it lives in my (climate-stable) office and though the body has probably been through too much (before we got it) for it to have any real value, it’s still a beautiful instrument that sounds great! Not that there’s any virtuosos in the house, but it does more than fine for our purposes.
Treacherous Cretin, I’ve just inherited my mother’s piano. It’s a Wurlitzer with a reasonable sound and good action. I have only one place to put it in my over-crowded house and that is next to a floor vent. Any suggestions on how to best block off the heat and air coming from the vent?
Also, the wall runs parallel to my bathtub on the otherside of the wall, but it contains no pipes. Should that be a problem? My only other choice is an outside wall (also with a vent) and my house was built in the Fifties. I have blocked the window light with a Shoji screen.
My real piano is a Kawai. I think it’s an E-1.
Once on an old upright, I called around until I found a tuner who could play A Foggy Day. He turned out to be one of the best jazz pianists in Nashville. And a really good tuner!
Should I have the inherited piano tuner as soon as it is moved or wait until cold weather? Should I have professional piano movers or settle for regular movers?
My piano used to get tuned in the early summer, when I arrived at my summer house. So in the fall or winter it was out of tune, but the next summer it wasn’t so far off at all. So the moral of the story is unless you want to tune it frequently, pick the season you want it to be in tune the most, and tune it every year at that time.
And yes, temperature and humidity swings on a short-term basis (daily) are worse than long-term (yearly). Nevertheless, my 50 year old piano survived Wisconsin winters for several years when there was no heat in the house. I certainly don’t recommend it.
It’s very unusual and extremely unlikely, but something I would encounter every few years.
Two examples off the top of my head:
A piano that went without tuning for a dozen years before being moved from Florida to San Diego, and then needed only fine tuning without any significant overall pitch correction.
My best friend’s piano: I tuned it in coastal San Diego; it was moved a year and a half later, in summertime, in a non-climate controlled moving van, to Northern Idaho where it sat through three years of Idaho seasons without tuning (but being played); when I eventually became the one to finally give it its next tuning, it needed minimal tuning and no pitch correction. I was floored.
I wouldn’t say that the UST-6 is famous for extraordinary tuning stability, but it is the type of piano I’d expect to see in one of the “amazing but true” stories.
Anything that prevents the vent from blowing directly at the piano would probably be adequate. Often, the biggest problem is cosmetic, coming up with a screen/deflector that doesn’t look ugly.
I wouldn’t worry about the shared bath wall or the outside wall.
Outside walls, redux: One of my older mentors had been a piano tech in Ireland before emigrating to the US. As a young man “back home” he would visit old homes (“old” in the 1940’s) where depending on the time of year, he could place his palm against an outside wall and find wet plaster sticking to it when he pulled it back. This, he told me, was when and where the outside wall would be a factor.
GE-1 ?
I’d say have it tuned within a few weeks of delivery, then deal with seasonal changes as necessary or desired.
And professional piano movers, always. No matter what a moving company says about their “piano moving crews.”
I didn’t say a little toolshed where I make people suffer, did I? Therefore, not the devil. I just prefer a little enclosed space where I can have the mixer and amps set up in close proximity without tripping on cables all the time.
Otis Spann might have been the devil – he played like the dickens, that’s for sure.
The reason I asked about what kind of piano the OP found was curiosity – I’m guessing if I wanted to spend 3K USD I’d go for a Yamaha U3 (used) or one of their similar lines. You can get a nice-ass piano for 3K if you go used.
+1 to real piano movers – they know how to deal with parts that may need to be removed to facilitate moving, have dollies, have blankets.